


The Heart of a Home

by OnyxDay



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Experimental Style, For a Friend, Hogwarts Eighth Year, M/M, Mentions of Death, POV Outsider, idk i just wanted to write from the castle's perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 00:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10865067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxDay/pseuds/OnyxDay
Summary: The castle just wants its inhabitants to be happy. If that means late night conversations in the Room of Requirement, then so be it.





	The Heart of a Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is a birthday gift for my friend Kaidan! I kinda experimented with the style and POV and all that. Hope you like it!
> 
> Also any references to Draco running to Harry or changing sides is based on a deleted scene from the Deathly Hallows pt 2

The corridors were empty. The portraits sleeping. The many cats that wandered the castle’s halls were either asleep or chasing rats in the dungeons.

The castle was still.

So when two of its residents awoke from their beds and stepped out of their dorms, the castle took notice. The castle was used to lost souls wandering its halls, it remembered the footfalls of several generations of pranksters stalking the corridors, it even recalled the astonished paths of its creators as they admired the school they had built.

Yes, the castle knew of late-night wanderers. The castle also knew these steps well, their gait familiar during the quiet hours of the night. These steps had explored its many floors over the years, always in the dead of night and mostly alone.

The lighter steps, the ones that still tripped over the trick steps and turned false corners, they spent lonely nights sitting with the cats in the dungeons as a small one and later they had strutted with false bravado and paced in fear and stalled in doubt - they turned and ran across the castle’s courtyard in a moment of hope.

The heavier ones, the ones that deftly skipped the trick steps and navigated the ever-changing walls with ease, they spent nights with friends exploring the halls as a small one and later they had walked with confidence and ran with desperation and stood with determination - they turned and walked across the castle’s courtyard toward their death.

The castle knew of their spats and their rivalry, the castle knew of everything that went on in its walls. But the castle also knew that these boys would compliment each other in ways few others could.

So the castle schemed. It shifted its stairs, changed its floorplan, opened and closed doors as needed to direct these two souls towards one another.

If the castle had possessed a mouth to do so, it would have smiled.

The two boys - one dark where the other was light, the other Dark where the first was Light - came to a standstill with barely a foot between them. Neither was expecting to see the other during the still hours of the night. Yet both felt a sense of relief at seeing the other, their minds preoccupied as they were with one another.

“Potter.”

“Malfoy.”

And that was it. They were quiet once more, the castle echoing with their voices.

The one with the unruly black hair gestured behind himself and the one with the pale blond hair nodded. Together they wandered the halls, eventually finding themselves on the seventh floor in front of a blank wall, across from a tapestry.

“Have you been back? Since…”

“No. You?”

“Once.”

The blond swallowed at the confession.

The boys stood in silence.

A cat meowed somewhere in the castle.

The boys began to pace, silently, in front of the wall. Once, turn, twice, turn, thrice, stop. A door slowly formed in the castle wall.

The castle wondered at the ability of the boys to think the same thing, together, without saying a word to the other.

The boys stepped through the door together and found exactly what they were looking for. The castle was especially proud of its work on this room. The stone walls were cool to the touch, the floor white marble, and the bath in the center was filled with warm water. Settees were placed against opposite walls, their velvet upholstery a pleasant indigo. Two sections were curtained off with flowing blue silk.

There was no hint of fire in this room.

The dark-haired boy stepped away from his blond companion and made his way toward one of the curtained off sections. The blond mimicked him a moment later, walking toward his own section.

The boys stripped to their underthings before stepping out from behind the curtain.

“Nice snitches.”

“Shut it, Malfoy.”

“No really, I love them. Where would I find a pair?”

The dark-haired boy pushed the blond one into the water and smiled to himself at the squeak of surprise the blonde made right before he fell.

The smile soon became a laugh as the blonde rose from the water, hair dripping and a glare set firmly on his face.

“You look like a drowned ferret.”

“Oh haha, very funny Potter.”

“Just calling them like I see them, Malfoy.”

The dark-haired boy laughed again, not seeing the pale hand that reached for his dark ankle.

He made an undignified yelp as he was pulled into the water.

“What was that you were saying about drowned ferrets, Potter?”

“You’re hilarious.”

“I learned from the best.”

The room was filled with laughter and splashing water, the castle content in its residents’ happiness. This was better, it decided. The laughter, the playfulness. The castle no longer wanted its residents to be separate and fearful. No longer wanted curses hurled in its halls. No longer wanted death and destruction to tear through its corridors. The castle wanted peace.

The sounds quieted as the two boys relaxed, lying together in the pool head to foot, yin and yang, two sides of a coin, neither complete without the other.

The castle was happy, and so were the boys.

“Why did you do it?”

“You’ll have to be more specific, Potter.”

“Why did you run toward me, in the Battle?”

There is silence.

“Hope, Potter. I ran to you because you offered hope.”

There is silence.

“I’m sorry.”

“Merlin’s sake, what for?”

“For what I did to you in the bathroom. I shouldn’t have used that spell. I didn’t know what it would do to you, I never- I never meant for you to be hurt that bad.”

“Then why did you do it?”

There is silence.

“I was scared. Angry. I don’t know, nothing I can think of can justify it.”

“We were enemies, Potter, you don’t need to justify it.”

“I don’t know if we were enemies, Malfoy.”

There’s a snort.

“Of course we were enemies.”

“Well, I don’t know about you, Malfoy, but I had bigger things to worry about. Like a Dark Lord that wanted me dead.”

“Oh, forgive me for believing we had something special. I didn’t know I was playing second fiddle to a Dark Lord, oh Chosen One. I suppose that changes things, doesn’t it?”

They boys laugh. The castle warms the bathwater again and adds the scent of lemongrass to the air.

“You were a dick, though. Still are, but I’m not sure if you mean it anymore.”

“Well, we’re not eleven anymore. I suppose somewhere along the line we grew up.”

“I think after going through a war it changes you. You grow up faster.”

“Obviously.”

The blond is splashed.

“Hey, I’m trying to be serious here!”

“Do go on, then.”

The dark-haired boy waits a moment before climbing out of the water and sitting on one of the couches. The blond copies him, sitting across from him. The castle keeps the room warm for them, so they don’t get a chill from their wet underthings.

“We were both arseholes to each other for most of school. You more so than me, but I can’t say I wasn’t an arse right back. But I realized during my time in hiding that we were both operating on very narrow ideas of each other. You only ever saw me as Potter: the famous Gryffindor Boy Who Lived. And I only ever saw you as Malfoy: the rich Prince of Slytherin. But we’re both so much more than that, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you never really wanted to end up a Death Eater. You were forced by circumstances outside your control to make a horrible decision. I saw it in your eyes in that bathroom, then the Astronomy tower, the mansion, even during the Battle. You were scared. And even if you were cruel and prejudiced, I can’t really blame that one you. It’s how you were raised. It’s still wrong, but you didn’t know any better, I suppose. You did eventually make the right decision, and before that, you were protecting your family. I can understand that - family is the most important thing we have, after love.”

“What about you, Potter?”

A soft laugh and a sigh.

“Did you know I was raised by Muggles? My mum’s sister and her husband raised me. I slept in the cupboard under the stairs for most of my life. They made me clean up after them and cook for them. I barely ate under their roof and if I did anything weird they’d lock me in my cupboard. One time they kept me in there for a whole weekend - they had gone on a trip and left me locked up. Hogwarts was the first place that ever felt like home to me. You know, the first time I saw my parents was in this magic mirror Dumbledore had? I hardly know anything about them, and random strangers will ask for an autograph because I survived the thing that killed them. How fucked up is that?”

“I- I never thought of it that way.”

“No one ever really does. Most everyone sees The Boy Who Lived first, and only a few seem to remember that he’s also the boy whose parents died for him. I mean, people are always telling me that I look like my dad with my mum’s eyes, but I don’t even know what that means. I don’t remember their faces outside photos. The one memory I have is the night they died.”

The blond one sits up and reaches out a hand to the other one. Tears stream down brown cheeks. The castle would comfort the boy if it knew how. It hopes the blond will know what to do.

“I died, did you know that? When I went into the forest, Voldemort killed me. I don’t know how long I was dead, but I remember going someplace really bright, and I think Dumbledore was there. But I was dead.”

“... Potter…”

“And I knew I had to die. It was my destiny, ‘either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives’, that’s what the prophecy said. But I was so scared, walking into that forest. I didn’t want to die.”

“Harry-”

“We were both too young, Draco. We were too young to be fighting a war, to be making the choices we were forced to make. We both lost so many, too many. I just- I don’t want to be enemies anymore. I’m tired of fighting.”

“So we’ll start over. No more enemies, no more fighting. Just us.”

“That sounds nice.”

And so, sitting across from each other in only their briefs, Draco Malfoy extends his hand to Harry Potter.

“My name’s Draco Malfoy, I’m an eighth-year student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and I would like to be your friend.”

“Nice to meet you, Draco. I’m Harry Potter, and I would love to be your friend.”

Harry takes Draco’s hand in his own.

The two boys, ensconced in the castle’s heart, smile at one another. A month later they find themselves back in the room, only this time they’re kissing. The castle is content. Now if only that strange blonde girl and the tall ginger girl would confess their feelings...


End file.
